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Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Fire Season Readiness on Oregon's State and Private Forestlands

Those who insist on a forecast of the wildfire season should
ask for something easier, like who will win the American League pennant. But
this we do know: Some sizable fires have already occurred and more are expected
as warm, dry weather begins to take hold. The Oregon Department of Forestry
(ODF) and its partner agencies are completing final preparations for the
season, however it shapes up. ODF continues to ensure that the essential
elements are in place: helicopters and air tankers, fire engines, hand crews,
and three specially trained teams to manage large wildfires.

Air attack

Helicopters are the vanguard of the firefighting force.
These ships - large, medium and small - provide close-in support to
ground-based fire crews. With precision drops from their water buckets,
experienced pilots can steer a flame front away from timber and houses. Eight
helicopters will fly under contract to ODF and the fire protective associations
in 2013.

Yesterday’s airliners do the heavy lifting in today’s air
attack on fires. Two converted DC-7 passenger planes, the seats replaced with
large tanks, deliver liquid fire retardant to slow the flames’ advance. The
propeller-driven aircraft turn double-digit airspeed into a virtue as they fly low and slow over rugged terrain, cooling hotspots to buy
time for ground firefighters to arrive on scene and engage the fire directly.

Seven smaller fixed-wing aircraft play a dual role of
reconnaissance and air attack guidance. These single-engine planes take to the
air following a thunderstorm to search for lightning-started fires. On a large
blaze, they circle the scene to report changes in fire behavior to fire
strategists on the ground.

Fire crews

With satellite imaging, computer modeling and other
high-tech tools available to fire managers today, the basic hand crew still
plays an essential role in firefighting. In hardhats and yellow fire shirts,
these ground firefighters trudge across rugged terrain building fire line the
old-fashioned way, with shovels and Pulaskis.

In addition to agency hand crews, ODF and the other wildfire
departments of the Pacific Northwest have 173 private contract fire crews
available this season. These 20-person crews will be dispatched as needed to
large fires wherever they occur in the region.

Thirty inmate firefighting crews and nine camp/kitchen crews
will come online shortly for dispatch to fires. Through a long-standing
arrangement with the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC), ODF trains and
fields 10-person inmate fire crews to perform initial attack on newly reported
fires. Drawn from correctional facilities throughout the state, these crews
also see action on large, extended-attack fires. While the fire crews are busy
on the fire line, specially trained inmate camp crews staff ODF’s mobile
kitchens, cranking out six meals a day to feed two shifts of firefighters.

Fire engine crews

Department of Forestry district offices completed the annual
training and hiring of fire engine crews in March. The mission of these
seasonal employees is to put out newly reported fires quickly at small size.
They do their job so well that most Oregonians don’t know the engine crews
exist. They play a major role in helping ODF meet its policy objective to put
out 97 percent of all fires at 10 acres or smaller.

Fire teams

ODF maintains three special teams on call to manage large
wildfires. When the members receive the dispatch call they drive through the
night from locations throughout the state, set up a tent “city” in the forest,
and go to work the next morning. The military-sounding job titles – air
tactical group supervisor, liaison officer, et al – hint at the nature of the
team’s mission: organize and manage a firefighting operation consisting of
hundreds of personnel and a baseball field-sized assemblage of heavy equipment
and hardware. Once the fire has been contained, district forces take over and
the team members head home to their regular jobs.

Landowner firefighters

Oregon’s forest landowners have been key partners in
Oregon’s collaborative fire protection system for more than a century. While
support from all forest landowners is valuable, many of the industrial
landowners maintain firefighting forces that include woods workers and heavy
equipment ranging from fire engines to bulldozers, on up to helicopters. Forest
landowners are intimately familiar with the land, including the location of
critical wildlife habitats.The knowledge and
expertise of their logging and silvicultural contractors comes into play as
well when a fire breaks out.

Forecasting fire

Dry lightning is the wild card in any Oregon fire season.
When thunderstorms produce numerous ground strikes but little rainfall,
hundreds of new fires can spring up instantaneously. Dry lightning events are
hard to forecast. But when meteorologists see strong potential, they notify
fire managers, who may order “move-ups” of aircraft, fire engines and crews to
areas likely to be affected. These additional resources help local forces
attend to the new fires quickly before they can grow into major incidents.

Smoke cameras

Forest lookouts still serve a purpose in some forest
locations. But ODF has found that “intelligent” smoke-detection cameras can
take the place of human watchers in many areas at reduced cost. These automated
video cameras are programmed to scan the forest for signs of smoke. When they
find it, a sophisticated computer application interprets the image. If it comes
up positive (not clouds or fog), the finding is then displayed as an alarm,
prompting a human operator, who makes the final determination.